A blizzard more intense than any storm that most people alive today in the Washington, D.C., area have ever witnessed is approaching. If there has been a trend in computer model guidance and forecasts from winter weather experts, it's to raise snowfall totals, not lower them.

Based on computer model guidance and information about the storm that has already begun to crank up across the South and the Appalachian states, the National Weather Service (NWS) has subtly changed its wording since Thursday, when it called for about 2 feet of snow to fall in D.C. Such an amount would already be the biggest snowstorm there since 1922.

Forecasts based on the most recent computer guidance show this storm has the potential to not just challenge all-time snowfall records in Washington, but to obliterate them.

On Friday morning, the NWS forecast for Washington called predicted "over 2 feet" of snow in the capital, with the potential for another half a foot or more to the west and southwest of the city. This would put the upcoming blizzard in rare company, with only one storm to compare it to — the Knickerbocker Blizzard of January 1922.

That storm was named after a D.C. theater whose roof collapsed due to the weight of the 28 inches of snow that fell. Nearly 100 people died in that incident, as people packed the house to escape the snow and see a showing of the silent film, "Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford."

The NWS is predicting a most likely snow total in Washington of 25 inches, with an upper bound of 32 inches, and a lower bound of 12 inches. Here's how the Capital Weather Gang blog put it in a Friday morning post:

"If you thought maybe this storm would fizzle at the last minute? Not gonna happen." Storm experts affiliated with the blog are predicting "crippling" amounts of snow, and a potential for this one to make history.

Last night, the Global Forecast System, or GFS, computer model projected truly staggering amounts of snow for the Washington area, with totals exceeding 30 inches. While that one model run is not an actual forecast, it indicates the potential for this storm to make history.

Part of the reason why the forecast snow totals are so high is that there are consistent signals from computer models, as well as observational data as the storm formed on Thursday evening across Texas and Louisiana, that there are potent upper level dynamics with this system.

In non weather geek-speak that means that this system has a lot of energy with it, and a lot of lift that is generating heavy precipitation and thunderstorms.

Such dynamics will enhance the lifting of the air, and will likely lead to areas of thundersnow with greater than 2-inch-per-hour snowfall rates.

Another reason is the storm's slow movement, which will ensure snowfall stretching on for about 36 hours in the Washington area, all the while pulling in copious amounts of moisture from a milder than average Atlantic Ocean.

Although forecasts have, for the most part, trended up, not down, with snowfall amounts in Washington, it's worth noting that previous blizzard forecasts for the nation's capital have let snow lovers down due to a last minute mix with sleet or rain, or a sudden jog in the storm track.

Snowfall records for the Washington, D.C., area.

Image: NWS/Mashable

These possibilities remain on the table, but are considered less likely based on the extraordinary unanimity among computer model guidance for this system.

On Thursday, National Weather Service director Louis Uccellini, who is a winter weather expert himself, told reporters that he had never seen so many computer models march in lockstep toward a forecast for such a complex storm before.

"I do not remember seeing four or five modeling systems having this much consistency" out to a week in advance, he said. "We're living in interesting times. I haven't seen that before."

If the forecast busts on the low end of things, below a foot of snow, then it might be time to go back to square one on computer programming.

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